Sunday, June 23, 2013

We're re-watching all the ORPHAN BLACK season 1 episodes. They are even cleverer and funnier the second time around. It take a clone show to take bedroom farce to the final frontier.

Orphan Black was developed for a time at the Canadian Film Centre, when Graeme Manson was showrunner-in-residence there in 2009. That means that Graeme brought in the show he'd been developing for half a dozen years already (with his writing partner John Fawcett), and the kids in the Prime Time program developed the show as if they were a for-hire writing room.

A roomful of CFC kids is not a roomful of veterans, obviously, but they are full of talent and ideas, and there's room to take risks -- you get to develop a whole season without worrying that if draft three of episode 2 does not satisfy the exec, the network will pull the plug on development. The series shows the benefits of the system. Many SF shows miss opportunities right and left until they hit their stride; Orphan Black takes those opportunities, whether for drama or pathos or humor.

And then, of course, there's Tatiana Maslany, who is such a chameleon in the show that you have to keep reminding you that the three totally different characters in the frame are all the same actress. I hope she gets her Emmy.

10:26 PM

2 Comments:

Ah, thank you for this post. That helps to explain the brilliance of this show. Very few shows hit the ground running with such smooth a stride. And yeah, Tatiana Maslany is a revelation. It's the first time watching a show that uses the multi-character/one actor trick, where you literally have to remind yourself that these are all the same actress. She's extraordinary.